Back when I was growing up, getting caught with a copy of 'Creepy,' 'Eerie' or 'Vampirella' was almost as bad as your parents finding out you were reading 'Playboy.'
I became a horror fan during the early 1960s, back when Hammer was putting out their groundbreaking 'Dracula' series with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and grew up watching 'Dark Shadows.'
Personally, I don't trust people who go out of their way to state they never read or watch horror and insist there's something wrong with those of us who do.
The best advice I got as a writer was also the first advice, which came from the late fantasy author and editor Karl Edward Wagner: Any agent who charges to look at your work is a crook.
The vampires in the 'VAMPS' series judge each other as harshly as they judge humans, and basically, vampires don't get along very well. So you've got a culture that's from cradle to grave like the worst high school you've ever been in.
